THE BLACKWELL
HANDBOOK OF
GLOBAL
MANAGEMENT:
A GUIDE TO MANAGING
COMPLEXITY
HENRY W. LANE, et al.,
Editors
Blackwell Publishing
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Henry W. Lane, Martha L. Maznevski, Mark E. Mendenhall,
and Jeanne McNett
The Blackwell Handbook of Global Management
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C
Edited by
H W. L , M L. M,
M E. M,  J MN
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Contents
List of Figures viii
Notes on the Contributors x
Preface xix
P I I:     1
1 Globalization: Hercules Meets Buddha 3
H W. L, M L. M,  M E. M
2 People in Global Organizations: Culture, Personality, and Social
Dynamics 26
M Y B, C G, M F. P, L R,
L S,  P-C W
P II G  55
3 Global Competencies: An Introduction 57
A B  J S. O
4 The Crucial Yet Illusive Global Mindset 81
N B, S B, S T,  O L
5 Mindful Communication 94
D C. T  J S. O
6 Creating and Building Trust 109
E W  G K. S
vi 
7 Boundary Spanning 121
S B, M S, E L. M,  A B
8 Building Community through Change 134
J S. O
9 Making Ethical Decisions 152

J MN  M S
P III L   171
Introduction
10 Leading in a Global Context: Vision in Complexity 175
D N. D H
11 Designing and Forming Global Teams 199
J C. G  C B. G
12 Effective Team Processes for Global Teams 227
S C D  B Z. E
13 Performance Management in Global Teams 250
B L. K  D N. D H
P IV E    273
14 Managing Knowledge in Global Organizations 275
T K, N A,  I B
15 External Sourcing of Knowledge in the International Firm 289
J B
16 Seeking Global Advantage with Information Management and
Information Technology Capabilities 300
D A. M
17 Global Account Management: New Structures, New Tasks 322
J B  J J. DS
 vii
18 Barriers and Bonds to Knowledge Transfer in Global Alliances
and Mergers 342
H W. L, D G,  I B
19 Managing Complexity in the Global Innovation Process: A Networks
and Social Capital Solution 362
E F. MD III, F C. S,  N A
P V S       379
Introduction 381

J S. O  S C D
20 The Developing World: Toward a Managerial Understanding 387
B J P
21 Leadership and Teamwork in the Developing Country Context 406
Z A
22 Gaining Legitimacy: Management’s Challenge in Developing and
Transitioning Economies 423
D J. MC  S M. P
23 Management in Action in Developing Countries 442
T J
Index 461
List of Figures
1.1 Managing global complexity 5
1.2 “Map” of the Handbook 22
3.1 The Effectiveness Cycle: What effective managers do 60
3.2 The building blocks of global competencies 66
3.3 The global contexts of culture 69
3.4 Global competencies 76
3.5 The relationship between global competencies and the Handbook’s
structure 77
4.1 The development of a global mindset 87
5.1 Effective intercultural communication 98
6.1 Building and sustaining trust globally 114
9.1 Ethical decision-making in a global context 157
9.2 Strategies for coping with ethical conflict 163
10.1 Leading and teaming in a global context 173
11.1 Summary of differences in context between traditional and global teams 203
12.1 Process building blocks and process flows 227
15.1 Approaches to external knowledge sourcing 292
15.2 Types of external knowledge being sourced through each approach 298

16.1 Balancing business flexibility and standardization 302
16.2 Approaches to balancing business flexibility and standardization locally,
regionally, and globally 304
16.3 The Information Orientation (IO) maturity framework 315
16.4 Balancing group and individual company flexibility and standardization 318
17.1 Identifying which customers require global account management 325
17.2 Options for structuring the global sales organization 327
17.3 The organizational effectiveness framework 334
17.4 The organizational structure and role of Schneider international
account managers 335
18.1 Knowledge transfer in an international joint venture network 346
   ix
18.2 The framework of organizational learning 351
19.1 The global innovation process 362
19.2 The three phases of the global innovation process 366
19.3 The network is born 369
19.4 The network evolves 371
19.5 The network matures 375
20.1 Ratio of GNP per capita for 20 richest to 20 poorest countries 393
20.2 Region comparison: Individualism 398
20.3 Region comparison: Power distance 398
20.4 Region comparison: Masculinity 399
20.5 Region comparison: Uncertainty avoidance 399
Notes on the Contributors
Nicholas Athanassiou (University of South Carolina) is an Associate Professor at
Northeastern University, which he joined in 1995 after a 16-year corporate career during
which he held a number of senior executive positions in Europe, Japan, East Asia, the
Middle East, and the United States. His major research interests are in international
business, with a focus on top management teams, global innovation management pro-
cesses, and global teams. His research has been published in the Journal of International

Business Studies, the Strategic Management Journal, Management International Review, the Journal of
World Business, Entrepreneurship: Theory and Practice, the Journal of Business Research, and the
Journal of Management Education.
Zeynep Aycan is an Associate Professor of Industrial and Organizational Psychology at
Koç University, Istanbul, Turkey. Having trained as a cross-cultural psychologist, Zeynep
examines the impact of culture on various aspects of business life, including leadership,
work–family conflict, and international human resource management. She has published
three books: Expatriate Management: Theory and Research, Leadership, Management, Human Resource
Practices in Turkey, and Culture and Organizational Behavior, and some thirty-five research
articles in journals including Human Relations, Applied Psychology: An International Journal, the
Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, and book chapters. She is the founder and the co-editor
of the International Journal of Cross-Cultural Management. Zeynep also has served as a consult-
ant and trainer to companies including Bechtel-Enka ( JV in Kazakhstan), Phillip–Morris,
Migros, and Alcatel. She is the recipient of two prestigious awards (2001, 2003) from the
Turkish Academy of Sciences for her contributions to the national and international
development of social sciences and practices in the area of management.
Schon Beechler, Director of the Columbia Senior Executive Program and Professor, is
a specialist in the management of multinational corporations and in Japanese manage-
ment. In her teaching and consulting work she specializes in leading and managing
change, global leadership development, and cross-cultural team effectiveness. Her major
research interests include a study to measure the impact of executive education training
on the global strategic leadership and management competencies of global senior executives
and a project entitled “Organizational Competitiveness: Exploring the Roles of Human
Resource Management and Organization Culture in Multinational Corporations,” funded
by the National Science Foundation. Her recent research publications have appeared in
Human Resource Management and the Academy of Management Review. She has also contributed
to books and practitioner-oriented journals and has edited two books on Japanese man-
agement, Japanese Business Enterprise (with Kristin Stucker) and Japanese Management Overseas:
Organizational and Individual Learning (with Allen Bird). She has lived, studied, and worked in
Japan for over six years, including a Fulbright Scholar appointment.

Iris Berdrow is Associate Professor of Management and Coordinator of the World of
Business at Bentley College, Waltham, MA. Her research interests are in global alliances,
learning partnerships, and competency based education. She has recently published in
the Strategic Management Journal, Long Range Planning, and the Journal of World Business, and is
co-author of The Bases of Competence: Skills for Lifelong Learning and Employability.
Allan Bird is Eiichi Shibusawa-Seigo Arai Professor of Japanese Studies at the University
of Missouri-St. Louis. He co-edited Japanese Multinationals Abroad: Individual and Organiza-
tional Learning, and edited the Encyclopedia of Japanese Business and Management. His research
has been published in various journals, including M@n@gement, the Academy of Management
Executive, and the Journal of Management Inquiry. He has lived and worked in Japan for eight
years and has also worked in South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, and Finland.
Julian Birkinshaw is Associate Professor of Strategic and International Management at
the London Business School. His research focuses on entrepreneurship, innovation, and
change in large multinational corporations. He is the author of seven books, including
Entrepreneurship in the Global Firm, Inventuring: Why Big Companies Must Think Small, and
Transnational Management (4th edition).
Nakiye Boyacigiller is Dean of the Graduate School of Management at Sabanci
University in Istanbul, Turkey. Well known in cross-cultural management circles,
Boyacigiller is currently Vice-President of Programs for the Academy of International
Business, and is a past chair of the International Management Division of the Academy of
Management. She is currently researching competitiveness in MNCs with funding from
the National Science Foundation. She is a member of six editorial boards, and her edited
volume, Crossing Cultures: Insights from Master Teachers, is forthcoming.
Mary Yoko Brannen is Professor of International Business at San José State University
and Associate Professor of executive education at the University of Michigan Business
School. She was born and raised in Japan, studied in France, Spain, and the United
States, and has consulted in cross-cultural issues for over fifteen years to various Fortune
500 companies. Her research focuses on ethnographic approaches to understanding
the effects of changing cultural contexts on technology transfer, work organization, and
individuals’ assumptions regarding work. Her book, Global Meeting Grounds: Negotiating

Complex Cultural Contexts Across Organizations, is forthcoming. Her work has been published
in the Academy of Management Journal, the Academy of Management Review, Human Relations,
the Journal of Management Inquiry, the CEMS Business Review, the Handbook of International
Management Research, and Advances in International and Comparative Management, among others.
    xi
Sue Canney Davison is Director of Pipal Ltd., Nairobi, Kenya. Her books include
Leading International Teams, and she has written numerous chapters for edited books. Her
journal articles include publications in the Journal of Management Development and Organization
Studies. Her main conceptual and consulting interests are international and virtual team
start-up, ongoing dynamics and performance; effective facilitation processes; and individual/
group and cross-cultural interchange. Her practical interests include understanding differ-
ent cultures, sustainable development, environmental and personal regeneration, and
community leadership, particularly in Africa.
Deanne Den Hartog holds an M.Sc. and Ph.D. in organizational psychology from the
Free University in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. She is currently full professor of organ-
izational psychology at the School of Economics and Business of the Erasmus University
in Rotterdam, the Netherlands. Her research has focused mainly on cross-cultural and
transformational leadership processes. Other research interests include HRM and team
effectiveness. She has published her work on these topics in a variety of journals (includ-
ing Leadership Quarterly and Journal of Organizational Behavior) as well as in chapters in inter-
national volumes and two Dutch books.
Joseph J. DiStefano is Professor of International Business and Organizational Behavior
at International Institute for Management Development (IMD). His research interests
focus on cross-cultural management. Professor DiStefano has authored and co-authored
several books (including International Management Behavior: From Policy to Practice, Blackwell)
and articles and over one hundred case studies. Prior to joining IMD, he was the found-
ing Executive Director of the Richard Ivey Business School’s Asian campus in Hong
Kong, where he was the Shirley Chan Memorial Professor of International Business. He
is Professor Emeritus of the Ivey Business School, University of Western Ontario.
Bjørn Z. Ekelund is a Norwegian business consultant and psychologist. He has been

managing director of small consultant organizations since 1987, at the same time doing
extensive consultative work around team analysis and team development. He works closely
with academic and professional institutions in order to leverage the quality of his con-
sultancy and increase the practical relevance of academic knowledge. Since 1993, he has
been managing director of Human Factors AS, Norway.
Cristina B. Gibson is currently Assistant Professor at the Graduate School of Manage-
ment, University of California, Irvine. Her research interests include social cognition,
communication, interaction, and effectiveness in teams; the impact of culture and gender
on work behavior; and international management. Her research has appeared in journals
such as the Administrative Science Quarterly, the Academy of Management Journal, the Academy of
Management Review, the Journal of Management, the Journal of International Business Studies, and
the Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology. She is co-author, with P. Christopher Earley, of New
Perspectives on Multinational Teams, and co-editor of Virtual Teams That Work: Creating Condi-
tions For Virtual Team Effectiveness.
Julia C. Gluesing is Associate Director of the Institute for Information Technology and
Culture at Wayne State University, Detroit, MI. She is experienced in the practical
application of the theory and methods of anthropology, cross-cultural communication,
xii    
and organizational culture to the understanding of business issues, and in the develop-
ment and implementation of solutions to strategic business problems. Her particular
specialization is global virtual teams in product development. Julia received her Ph.D. in
Business and Industrial Anthropology from Wayne State University, Detroit, and her MA
in Organizational and Intercultural Communication and Research from Michigan State
University. She is a contributing author in Virtual Teams that Work: Creating Conditions
for Effective Virtual Teams, and has published about global teaming in scholarly journals,
including The Anthropology of Work and the Journal of Organizational Behavior. She has just
completed a grant from the National Science Foundation to study the co-evolution of
global teaming and virtual technology.
Carolina Gómez, an Assistant Professor at Florida International University, has work
experience with Northern Telecom in both marketing and business planning, and with

General Electric, where she was part of a leadership development program that enabled
her to work in the different functional areas. Dr. Gómez has also consulted for GE in the
areas of cross-cultural values and self-managed work teams, and has provided training in
creative problem-solving for teams. Her research focuses on the influence of culture on
management in the areas of testing the cross-cultural generalizability of organizational
theories, such as organizational justice (with a specific interest in Latin America), the
management of multinational subsidiaries abroad, and international entrepreneurship.
Carolina has presented and published papers in forums such as the Academy of Management
Conference, the Academy of International Business, the International Association of Business and
Society, the Academy of Management Journal, Group and Organization Management, the Journal of
Experimental Social Psychology, and the Journal of Business Research.
Danna Greenberg is an Assistant Professor of Management at Babson College, where
she teaches undergraduate, graduate, and executive courses in Organizational Behavior,
Negotiation, and Mergers & Acquisitions. Her research focuses on the relationship between
the individual and the organization in times of change. Most recently, she has studied this
relationship in the context of mergers and acquisitions, organizational responses to crises,
and growth in multinational organizations. She has written many articles for such journals
as the Administrative Science Quarterly, Academy of Management Learning and Education, and the
Journal of Applied Behavioral Science. Her work has also appeared in The Portable MBA in
Management and the forthcoming book, Mergers and Acquisitions: Creating Integrative Knowledge.
Terence Jackson holds a bachelor’s degree in Social Anthropology (University of Wales,
Swansea), a master’s in Education (University of Keele, UK), and a Ph.D. in Manage-
ment Psychology (Henley Management College, UK). He is Professor and Director of the
Centre for Cross Cultural Management Research at ESCP – EAP European School of
Management (Oxford – Paris – Berlin – Madrid). He edits the International Journal of Cross
Cultural Management and has just published his sixth book, International HRM: A Cross Cultural
Approach. He has published numerous articles on cross-cultural management ethics, man-
agement learning, and management in developing countries in such journals as Human
Relations, the Journal of Management Studies, and the Asian Pacific Journal of Management. He is
currently directing a major research project on management and change in sub-Saharan

Africa, and his book Management and Change in Africa: A Cross-Cultural Perspective will be
published in 2004.
    xiii
Bradley L. Kirkman is Associate Professor of Management at the DuPree College of
Management at the Georgia Institute of Technology. He specializes in using work teams
across cultures and has conducted research and presented papers in Argentina, Australia,
Belgium, Canada, England, Finland, France, Mexico, China, the Philippines, Turkey,
and the United States. His articles have appeared in such journals as the Journal of Cross-
Cultural Psychology, the Academy of Management Journal, the Academy of Management Review, the
Academy of Management Executive, Personnel Psychology, and Organizational Dynamics.
Tatiana Kostova is an Associate Professor in International Business at the Moore
School of Business, University of South Carolina. Her research focuses on the man-
agement of multinational corporations, more specifically, the relationships between
headquarters and subsidiaries and the transfer of management practices and knowledge.
Her research has been published most recently in the Academy of Management Review and
the Academy of Management Journal.
Henry (Harry) W. Lane is the Darla and Frederick Brodsky Trustee Professor in
International Business at Northeastern University. He has been the Associate Editor of
the Journal of International Business Studies and a Visiting Professor at business schools in
Europe and Latin America. Professor Lane also is active as a consultant and faculty
member for university and corporate courses around the world. His research interests are
intercultural management, the management of global innovation, and organizational
learning and strategic renewal. He has authored or co-authored numerous books and
articles and has written over seventy case studies. His articles have appeared in the Journal
of International Business Studies, the Academy of Management Review, the Academy of Management
Executive, the Journal of World Business, Management International Review, Organizational Dynam-
ics, the Journal of Business Ethics, International Studies of Management and Organization, the Journal
of Business Administration, the Journal of Management Development, R & D Management, and the
International Journal of Organizational Analysis.
Orly Levy is an independent consultant based in Tel Aviv, Israel. Her research and

consulting practice currently focus on cognitive and cultural challenges of cross-border
management, with particular attention to high-reliability performance. Her work on the
relationship between managerial global mindset and global strategy was selected by the
Academy of Management as one of the best six dissertations for the 2001 Newman
Award. She received her Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Donald A. Marchand is Professor of Strategy and Information Management at the
International Institute for Management Development (IMD) in Lausanne, Switzerland.
He is the co-author of Making The Invisible Visible: How Companies Win with the Right Informa-
tion, People and IT ( John Wiley and Sons) and Information Orientation: The Link to Business
Performance (Oxford University Press). Professor Marchand is an acclaimed speaker and
advisor to senior executives of leading companies in Europe, North America and the Asia
Pacific. He is founder, chairman and president of enterprise IQ the first company offering
proven metrics linking business performance to how effectively a company uses informa-
tion, knowledge, people, and IT.
Martha L. Maznevski is Professor of Organizational Behavior and International Man-
agement at the International Institute for Management Development (IMD) in Lausanne,
xiv    
Switzerland, where she researches, teaches, and consults in the areas of multicultural and
virtual team performance, international management, and global leadership. She has
published a textbook and articles in scholarly and management journals, and has experience
in North America, Europe, and Asia. Her current research focuses on high-performing
virtual teams and networks in global organizations.
Daniel J. McCarthy is the Patrick and Helen Walsh Research Professor and Co-
director of the High-Technology MBA Program at the College of Business Administra-
tion at Northeastern University. He has taught, consulted, and conducted research
internationally for over two decades, and has been recognized as one of the top two
scholars internationally in business and management in Russia and Central and Eastern
Europe. His recent books include The Russian Capitalist Experiment and the forthcoming
Corporate Governance in Russia, as well as the co-edited special issue of the Journal of World
Business on corporate governance in transitioning economies, and articles on Russian

corporate governance in Organizational Dynamics, the European Management Journal, and the
Journal of World Business.
Edward F. McDonough III is Professor of Organization Behavior at Northeastern
University. His research focuses on managing global new product development, and his
articles have appeared in the Harvard Business Review, the Academy of Management Journal,
the International Journal of Project Management, the Journal of Product Innovation Management,
the Journal of International Marketing, Research-Technology Management, the R&D Management
Journal, and the IEEE Transactions on Engineering Management. He was the Vice-President
of Research for the Product Development & Management Association and President of
the College of Technology and Engineering Management in the Institute of Management
Sciences.
Jeanne McNett is an Associate Professor of Management at Assumption College in
Worcester, MA. Her research interests are in the areas of education and training for
cross-cultural effectiveness, corporate ethics in the international setting, and application of
the liberal arts in the business environment. Her career includes long-term assignments in
Japan, Saudi Arabia, Germany, Britain, and Algeria. Her research includes publications
in the Journal of Management Education and Insights, and Virginia Woolf: Turning the Centuries.
She is also an active case researcher and writer.
Mark E. Mendenhall holds the J. Burton Frierson Chair of Excellence in Business
Leadership at the University of Tennessee, Chattanooga. His areas of scholarly and
consulting expertise are the development of global leaders and the cross-cultural adjust-
ment of expatriate managers. His other research and consulting interests are in the areas
of leadership and organizational change and the nonlinear dynamics of organizational
systems. He has published widely in the area of international management in such jour-
nals as the Academy of Management Review, the Journal of International Business Studies, and the
Sloan Management Review. His most recent book is Developing Global Business Leaders: Policies,
Processes, and Innovations.
Edwin L. Miller is Professor Emeritus at the University of Michigan Business School
and a Fellow of the Academy of Management. He has published extensively in the area of
international human resource management with a specialization in expatriate staffing and

    xv
international management training and development. His publications have appeared in
such journals as the Academy of Management Journal, the Academy of Management Executive, the
Journal of International Business Studies, the California Management Review, and the International
Management Review. He has recently published in the Journal of World Business, and his
articles have appeared in such books as Developing Global Business Leaders: Policies, Processes
and Innovations and The Handbook of International Business (1st and 2nd editions).
Joyce S. Osland is Professor of Organizational Behavior at San José State University in
San José, California. She lived and worked overseas in seven countries for fourteen years,
primarily in West Africa and Latin America, as a manager, researcher, consultant, and
professor. Her current research interests include expatriates, cultural sensemaking, Latin
American management, and global leadership. Her recent publications include Broadening
the Debate: Pros and Cons of Globalization and The Journey Inward: Expatriate Hero Tales and
Paradoxes, as well as the seventh edition of Organizational Behavior: An Experiential Approach,
and The Organizational Behavior Reader.
Mark F. Peterson is the Internet Coast Professor of Management at Florida Atlantic
University. He has published over eighty chapters and articles in journals including the
Administrative Science Quarterly, the Academy of Management Journal, the Journal of Organizational
Behavior, Group and Organization Management, Organization Science, Organization Studies, Human
Relations, and the Annual Review of Psychology. His recent publications have been about
methods issues that researchers face in international collaboration, and about the sources
that managers in different parts of the world rely on to handle the work situations they
face. He serves as Associate Editor for Group and Organization Management and Consulting
Editor for the Journal of Organizational Behavior.
Sheila M. Puffer is Professor of International Business at the College of Business
Administration at Northeastern University. She is a recent editor of The Academy of Man-
agement Executive and has also been recognized as the foremost scholar internationally in
business and management in Russia and Central and Eastern Europe. Her recent books
include The Russian Capitalist Experiment and the forthcoming volumes Corporate Governance in
Russia and International Management: Insights From Fiction and Practice. She is also co-editor of

the special issue of the Journal of World Business on corporate governance in transitioning
economies, and articles on Russian corporate governance in Organizational Dynamics, the
European Management Journal, and the Journal of World Business.
Betty Jane Punnett, a native of St. Vincent and the Grenadines, has lived and worked
in the Caribbean, Canada, Europe, Asia, and the United States. She joined the Univer-
sity of the West Indies in 1997, after teaching at the University of Windsor in Canada for
12 years. She is currently Professor of International Business and Management and head
of the department at Cave Hill. Her major research interest is culture and management
and she is currently working on several projects in the English Caribbean, including a
project focusing on effective management, funded by the Ford Foundation. She has
published widely in the international business management field, including four texts,
over fifty journal articles, and many contributions to edited books. In addition to her
academic experience, Professor Punnett works as a consultant for a variety of private- and
public-sector organizations and offers seminars and workshops for practicing managers.
Her current writing includes International Business – A Caribbean and Latin American Perspective,
xvi    
forthcoming. International Dimensions of Organizational Behavior and Human Resource Man-
agement, and the new edition of The Handbook for International Management Research, of which
she is co-editor, also are forthcoming.
Laurence Romani is research associate at the Institute of International Business (IIB)
of the Stockholm School of Economics, Sweden. Her research interests are in the field of
cross-cultural management with a focus on culture theory. She contributed to the second
edition of International Human Resource Management and Reflecting Diversity: Viewpoints from
Scandinavia.
Lilach Sagiv is a lecturer in the School of Business Administration at the Hebrew
University. She has studied the role of values at the micro, meso, and macro levels. Her
current research focuses on the impact of cultural dimensions of values on organizational
behavior and processes. She is also investigating the mechanisms that link personal values
to actual behavior.
Mikael Søndergaard is Associate Professor at the University of Aarhus, Department of

Management, School of Economics and Management, Denmark. His research interests
include cross-cultural issues and international issues from an organizational behavior
perspective. He has contributed to numerous edited books and has contributed articles to
journals including the International Journal of Cross-Cultural Management, European Business
Forum, the Academy of Management Executive, and Organization Studies.
Francis C. Spital is Associate Professor at Northeastern University and Coordinator of
the Human Resources Group. He has published in the Harvard Business Review, the Academy
of Management Executive, the Journal of Engineering and Technology Management, and Research
Technology Management. His research interests include the dynamics of strategic and techno-
logical change.
Günter K. Stahl is Assistant Professor of Asian Business and Comparative Management
at INSEAD. He has authored or co-authored several books and numerous journal articles
in the areas of leadership and leadership development, cross-cultural management, and
international human resource management. His current research interests also include
international careers, trust within and between organizations, and the management of
mergers and acquisitions. At INSEAD, Günter has taught MBA students and executives
on various topics, including value-based leadership; strategic human resource manage-
ment; business ethics; cross-cultural management; and management of alliances, mergers,
and acquisitions. He has also acted as a consultant for a number of corporate clients, and
was involved in the design of innovative leadership development systems that are used by
leading multinational corporations.
Sully Taylor is Professor of International Management and Director of the Master of
International Management program at Portland State University. Her research focuses
on the role of the human organization in creating global competitiveness, and also on
women expatriates. She is co-author of Western Women Working in Japan: Breaking Corporate
Barriers, Does It Really Matter if Japanese MNCs Think Globally? The Impact of Employees’
Perceptions on their Attitudes, and Toward an Integrated Theory of International Human Resource
Management.
    xvii
David C. Thomas is Professor of International Management in the Faculty of Business

Administration, Simon Fraser University, Canada. He is the author of four books, includ-
ing Essentials of International Management: A Cross-Cultural Perspective. In addition, his research
has appeared in such journals as the Journal of Applied Psychology, the Journal of International
Business Studies, the Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, the Journal of Organizational Behavior,
Advances in International Management, the Leadership Quarterly, and Organizational Dynamics. He
is currently the International Business Area Editor for the Canadian Journal of Administrative
Sciences and serves on the editorial boards of the Journal of World Business, Advances in
International Management, the International Journal of Organizational Analysis, and the International
Journal of Cross-Cultural Management.
Ellen Whitener specializes in organizational behavior and human resource manage-
ment. Her current research focuses on building trusting relationships within organizations
and evaluating the impact of human resource practices on employee attitudes and per-
formance. She also serves as senior associate dean at the McIntyre School of Commerce,
University of Virginia.
Pei-Chuan Wu is Assistant Professor in the Department of Management & Organisa-
tion, NUS Business School, National University of Singapore. Her core interests include
strategic human resource management and firm performance; comparative studies of
HRM and IHRM; and culture, HRM, and the psychological contract. Recently her
research article was published in the International Journal of Cross-Cultural Management.
xviii    
Preface
I  I
O N (ION)
1
Ten years ago, leading researchers called loudly and clearly for well-coordinated multi-
researcher multinational projects.
2
The calls cited two important benefits of such studies.
They would allow us to explore the answers to international management questions,
which require conducting research in multiple contexts at more or less the same time.

They would also counter the cultural biases we all bring to our thinking and turn those
biases into synergies. Since the 1990s several well-coordinated multi-researcher projects
have been or are being conducted, and we are seeing the fruits of their labors. Some early
examples include the GLOBE study on leadership
3
and the event management study on
decision-making.
4
Another group of researchers have been experimenting for the last few years with
an alternative model of coordinated research – a loosely-coupled research network. ION
(International Organizations Network) was formed with a mission to increase the quality
and impact of research on people and their effectiveness in international organizations.
The network’s vision is to be a catalyst for the creation and application of knowledge and
understanding that powerfully impacts how international organizations are managed. ION
strives to initiate and facilitate high-quality research addressing management-related chal-
lenges of importance to global enterprises, such as motivation, leadership, teams, organiza-
tional structure, and human resource systems. ION also works to facilitate the translation
of research findings into practical implications for organizations and educational material for
innovative and effective teaching. In essence, we are scholars who care deeply about man-
agers and executives who find themselves working in the global business environment.
Structurally, ION is a loosely-coupled, global network of scholars and professionals
with a broad range of disciplinary backgrounds and specific topics of interest. The members
are highly active at the leading edge of the field, publishing academic and management-
oriented articles and books, editing journals, presenting research at conferences, develop-
ing and sharing innovative teaching methods, and consulting frequently to companies on
issues related to international management. To advance the goals of the field, ION’s
members are strongly committed to active collaboration on a worldwide scale. Like the
most effective multinational enterprises, ION leverages the different perspectives associ-
ated with multiple disciplines and geographic regions to achieve innovation and synergy.
Since its founding in 1999, the ION network affiliation has grown to include over seventy

scholars located in more than twenty countries.
As a loosely coupled network, ION’s purpose is not to conduct specific research projects.
Instead, it supports the research community itself. No primary research project has been
initiated by ION as a group. ION has, however, helped match up researchers conducting
similar studies, facilitating them as they work together to create a more powerful single
study. Through the ION network, scholars have helped each other find appropriate
literature in other cultures, tackle methodological issues, and explore implications of
unpredicted results. Some ION members work closely with others in the network, while
some work almost exclusively with people outside the network.
H ION W
The core of the ION network consists of about forty international management scholars
who study various aspects of how people work in international settings. In terms of
traditional disciplines, most members of the core are trained in and teach organizational
behavior/occupational psychology or organizational theory. Some are in the strategy
field, and emphasize execution and implementation as much as the theory of the firm.
Interestingly, almost all members cross traditional discipline boundaries regularly both in
their research and in their teaching, and in fact this “lack of academic home” was one
characteristic that brought the network together.
The ION core meets annually at its own three-day meeting. The first two meetings
were sponsored by the University of Virginia in 1999 and 2000. The meetings are con-
ducted as a workshop, and research in progress is shared. Research in its earliest stages
benefits from brainstorming, implications of preliminary results are shared and discussed,
and paper drafts are critiqued before submission for publication. Members of the network
also get together whenever possible at academic meetings around the world, “drop in” on
each other when traveling, and submit joint symposia or conduct professional workshops
on topics of importance to international management. Core members initiate professional
and social events – which are attended by an ever-broadening group of colleagues – at
various academic conferences.
A key to developing an effective, loosely coupled coordinated research network seems
to have been creating a tightly-coupled social system. New, important knowledge about

social systems is best created with the help of a deep, close social system. When people in
such networks connect in multiple ways, beyond narrow definitions of work, they under-
stand each others’ backgrounds and contexts and create shared experiences from which
the knowledge is generated. ION annual workshops, no matter what the topic or setting,
are always structured to facilitate deep conversation and dialogue around the thorniest
issues of the field. Parts of the workshop take place in settings that help members learn
together about the local history and perspectives, linking together to create insights about
the field of international management.
xx 
Many of ION’s accomplishments are intangible, or are indirectly related to tangible
outcomes. For example, through dialogue members develop a better perspective on how
their research fits into the field, and then articulate its contribution more clearly to
reviewers and students. In workshops, members question the received wisdom of the field
and share tacit insights about the messiness of data analysis, developing a platform for
more solid theory development and empirical rigor. Since all members cross traditional
academic disciplines, a wide scope of knowledge is shared.
But some accomplishments are tangible. ION was a key player in the launching of the
International Journal of Cross-Cultural Management. It has supported candidates for
positions in various academic associations. It has provided a strong network for appoint-
ment, promotion, and tenure recommendations and reviews. It has generated several
joint research projects and co-authorships, and presented joint papers and symposia. At
the recent conference “Identifying Culture,” sponsored by the Institute of International
Business of the Stockholm School of Economics, ION was cited as a highly effective effort
to influence a field systematically in management academics.
THE BLACKWELL HANDBOOK OF GLOBAL MANAGEMENT:
A G
UIDE TO MANAGING GLOBAL COMPLEXITY: T P
While our experiment with a loosely-coupled research network has so far generated
positive and interesting results, there remain some particularly difficult challenges.
One challenge is related to group-generated projects. We have found that in order

to maintain and strengthen the social system around the advancement of the field,
the group must create something meaningful together. However, the “something”
cannot be a single research project, since that would run counter to the network’s
objectives.
The response to the challenge was this Handbook project. In August of 2000, the
editors of this book were approached by Blackwell Publishing to write a handbook for
global managers. After discussing the project with Blackwell, we realized that a greater
opportunity existed than simply writing another book: utilizing the combined talent,
knowledge, experience, and wisdom of the members of ION to bring the most current
knowledge based on research and experience to global managers.
In Boston, during a frigid three days in late February 2001, 37 scholars of the ION
membership met at Northeastern University in Boston to strategize how to go about
tackling this project. How can a group of scholars who use different research methodolo-
gies, focus on different competencies of global management in their work, have a wide
variety of experiences in consulting, and bring different theories to the understanding of
global management, combine their efforts to write “the best book that has ever been
written” for executives on global management?
This volume is a product of collaborative efforts of the members of ION. The network
members agreed to write it jointly, and took on the ambitious goal of producing a
coherent book that translates the very leading edge of international management thought
and practice into a single statement on managing global complexity. The Handbook
certainly articulates the most important findings from our field together with their implica-
tions, in a relatively seamless way, with contributions from 41 authors.
 xxi
The problem with most books that have as their goal to educate global executives is
that they are written by only one or two people. Even if the author is a genius, he/she is a
genius within a limited area of global management. A single author – or double or triple
author partnerships – simply cannot have a broad enough perspective, range of experience,
and specific expertise to cover the wide complexity of issues and competencies needed to
effectively manage in the global business environment. With ION, we had an international

group of experts that could provide the needed scope of expertise to cover the topic.
The most common way to organize a book such as this would be to simply have each
expert write a chapter on his/her area of expertise, combine them together, and publish
the book; however, our experience with such edited books is that each author tends to
write in isolation of the others, and in the end the book does not “connect the dots”
between the various skills and issues of global management. None of the skills and issues
are independent of each other – our goal was to not only specify the skills and issues of
global management, but to show in a clear way how they are linked, how they depend on
each other, and how they fit together.
Also, the ION writers wanted to portray the complexity of managing globally not in a
“silo-based, step 1-then-step 2” format but rather to bring clarity to the actual dynamics
of global management, which are usually nonlinear and systemic in nature. We wanted to
wrestle with the reality of the milieu of the global manager (which is chaotic, paradoxical,
confusing, and systemic) and clarify it, and then to provide approaches (based on the best
research in the field) that can assist the manager to manage productively within the
complexity of his or her job.
The theme and flow of the book were “negotiated” through several iterations of small-
group and large-group interactions at that ION workshop at Northeastern University in
2001. Two and a half intense days were spent in mapping out a dynamic framework for
the book. This constituted fleshing out what globalization actually is (versus what most
people say or think it is) and targeting processes of globalization that, if managed well,
raise the potential for productivity in any global organization. ION members were then
formed into teams around these process management areas, where they developed plans
for how they would write their respective sections.
The next year was spent in more thinking, discussion, and writing. The project team
reassembled in Lausanne, Switzerland at the International Institute of Management
Development (IMD) in February of 2002 to provide feedback of section drafts, coordinate
each section with concepts from the other sections, and to ensure that no critical idea or
issue had been overlooked. Another meeting of writers was held in Charleston, South
Carolina, in October of 2002 and further refinements to each chapter in each section

were made.
In 2003 it was time to pilot test the ideas. In February, during the annual meeting held
this time at the University of Missouri St. Louis, we hosted an ION Executive Dialogue.
For two days we brought together senior executives, the authors of this Handbook and
other members of ION to engage in a dialogue based on the material in the book and to
provide feedback to the authors. Further refinements to the manuscript were made based
on these discussions before final publication.
We offer you, now, this book as a culmination of our efforts.
The book has been written in such a way that it is not necessary to read it from
beginning to end, though this would be a beneficial way to begin to approach the book.
xxii 
 xxiii
Each section is linked to all the other sections conceptually. By starting with a topic that
you are currently struggling with or that you need more information about, you will find
yourself being subsequently led to other sections of the book in a natural progression.
That said, we do suggest beginning with the Introduction, as it sets the conceptual
foundation upon which all the sections and their chapters build.
The writers of this book, and its editors, wish to thank Rosemary Nixon from Blackwell
Publishing for the indefatigable patience and trust she has shown us throughout this
process. From the start she sensed strongly the value-added this project would have for
managers and executives, and for the entire field of international management. She is a
visionary editor, the type that one rarely sees in the publishing industry. Our special
thanks also go to the McIntire School of the University of Virginia, the College of
Business Administration at Northeastern University, IMD, the CIBER Center of the
University of South Carolina, the University of Missouri, St. Louis, and the Frierson
Leadership Institute of the University of Tennessee, Chattanooga for financial and other
support for this project. Finally, we would like to thank the executives who participated in
the ION Executive Dialogue: Rocky Felice, Limitedbrands; Norihito Furuya, JAL Aca-
demy Co. Ltd.; Valerie Harley, Ablestik Laboratories; Alan Jarvis, GMAC; Jim Rush,
Marsh, Inc., and George Schenk, Monsanto Company.

N
1 The “Introduction to ION” first appeared as an article in Insights, the research news publication
of the Academy of International Business. Maznevski, M. L. (2002), Learning from loosely-
coupled research coordination: The ION network, Academy of International Business Insights, 2(4),
5–7.
2 Boyacigiller, N. A., & Adler, N. J. (1991), The parochial dinosaur: Organization science in a
global context, Academy of Management Review, 16(2), 262–90.
3 House, R., Javidan, M., Hanges, P., & Dorfman, P. (2002), Understanding cultures and implicit
leadership theories across the globe: An introduction to project GLOBE, Journal of World Business,
37(1), 3–10.
4 Smith, P. B., Peterson, M. F., & Schwartz, S. (2002), Cultural values, sources of guidance and
their relevance to managerial behavior: A 47 nation study, Journal of Cross Cultural Psychology, 33,
188–208.
H. W. L.
M. L. M.
M. M.
J. M.